Anyone else notice dual cores are often useless?

Even when multitasking? Or is this just me, and something is wrong?

Most multitasking things I do involve the HDD. And that limits the speed of everything else. For example, If i'm listening to music and downloading music at the same time, web pages load very slow for me because the HDD is being used at a constant rate (the HDD light stays lit full time).

I didn't really expect this because I didnt think the HDD was even used for web pages. I only have 512 MB of RAM, but usualy have at least 200 MB available, so it's not like the computer is forced into useing the HDD as virtual memory.

Is this normal? If it is then I really don't see much of a advantage in dual cores. And if this isn't normal... is there something I can do? I noticed sometimes the HDD will have a really hard time loading simple music files, and lock up my computer... but my diagnostics says everything is normal.

 

you could defrag -or- get a faster hdd (not every harddrive is as fast as the other, as you know)
you could get more ram (and have a ramdisk for webcache, try using tweakXP in combination with that)
you could tell your browser only to use a small amount of caching (this way it will not bloat up the sometimes 1+gig cache files, but stick to a small but efficient 50-200mb, which frags your hdd less)
but you are right: for just websurfing you don't need a dual core cpu! unless you visit heavy flash-game-sites

 

Ok... there was somthing very wrong with my computer.

When I was typing my last post, my computer was going very slow because I was copying a DVD. What I did was restore my computer and now everything is working great. It is reading the DVD at 3.7x compared to the .8x it was doing just a few min ago. Also the HDD is flashing at a much slower rate, and web pages aren't going slow.

What is it that is causing this? After a while for no reason at all, the HDD will have a hard time loading anything, and the regular disk drive starts acting funning. DVDs will skip (video and sound) and so does audio CDs.

This last time it happened it was literally in the middle of the song when I wasnt even on the computer. And it was like that from that point on untill I restored my computer just a few min ago.

I have no idea what is doing this... and im getting sick of restoring my computer.

 

well if you copy a dvd (to your harddrive and from there to your dvd drive again I presume) your harddrive has to work a lot - considering that you may not have the fastest harddrive (my guess it's a heavily fragmented 5400rpm, plus you may have running a lot of tasks in the background you don't even know about, such as antivirus scanning or what not)..
anyways..
you should do this:
1) run the taskmanager (ctrl+alt+del) and check if you have more than 33-35 processes (if it's anything like 40 or even more than you should clean your computer from all the bloatware.. there's lots of guides here on how to do this)
2) you should defragment your harddrive on a periodical basis, depending on how heavily you use your computer I'd recommend like once a month
3) report back here

 

Yes, I agree. Pretty much, most users will never use their processor to their full potential, sometimes, yes, but not all the time.


However, of course, bloatware, extra processes, low RAM(1gb should be the least anyone should have nowadays).

 

No Im saying there was a problem that developed over time. This is somthing that happened before... and I fixed it the same way (doing a restore).

It is a 5400 RPM but it has a 8 MB buffer and is not frgamented at all really.

I was having these problems just a few mins ago. And as soon as I did the restore, they instantly went away. The HDD wasnt being stressed, and the computer wasnt going slow. Also DVDs and CDs stopped skipping.

Also I keep very close track of my processes. They are usualy within 27-33 depending on what I'm doing.

 

You need to think ahead to the future. When dual-core processors become the main stream, and after vista has been out for a while, programs will start being made to take better advantage of dual-core processors. No it dosent to alot for you now, but in 2 years a dual-core processor will be essental to fast and efficent computing.

 

The problem is most likely realated to RAM. Windows XP can swallow 250MB+ without you even doing anything...

If it runs low then it will use your hard drive as a swap disk (basically using your hard drive as ram) which is very slow compared to memory.

Yes a fresh install/recovery always alleviates some ram problems because anything you install will hog up more resources in turn which hogs up more ram. Also if you run any applications and then close it the OS (winxp) will not recover 100% of its ram allocated to that program, some will be wasted...

Get yourself more RAM and you should see a definite improvement. I can't express how much of a difference it makes. When I use to play games with only 512mb ram for an hour or so and accidently hit the winodws key. OMG... it took 5 minutes of non stop hard disk seeks just to switch back to my desktop. Now it switches more or less instantly without any hard drive seeks. It improved load times drastically too. My hard drive hardly ever seeks.

System restore will "randomly" use your hard drive if you haven't turned it off.

Your computer is only as fast as your slowest component... In your case, with lack of ram your laptop is using the slowest component way too often.

After hours of your normal usage press ctrl + alt + del and then performance tab and under "Commit Charge (K)" look at the peak figure. If its over 512,000 then its using your hard drive to swap a lot.

 

The hard drive being in use wouldn't affect your web surfing unless you had to load a plugin for something, because the browser is running off stuff already in the RAM. It could be that you're downloading music; it takes up bandwidth and can slow you down.
It sounds like you could benefit from another 512MB of RAM. Even if not all your physical memory is used, I believe the system is still using the swap file. I could be incorrect there of course, but a constantly lit HDD light (it wouldn't be lit all the time if you were just downloading/listening at the same time) is a pretty clear indication that the swap file is in use. Pause your downloads/music next time that happens and see if the light is still lit.

 

Windows likes to keep some RAM free, for overall best performance. But that does mean it starts using the swap file before the RAM is actually 100% full.

In any case, no dualcore (or just faster) processors won't make a difference when you're waiting for the HDD.

Close, but no cigar.
If it's over 512mb, then the hard drive is used to swap, yes. But not neccesarily "a lot". It puts the least used data on the HD, and if that data is only required, say, once every 10 minutes, it doesn't really have an effect on performance. It's only if all 512mb of data are actually in frequent use, you have a problem. And programs usually have a lot of data loaded that they hardly ever use. That can safely be pushed to the swap file.

 

I have been doing a bit of research on the actual multitasking capablities of a dual core machine.

Multi-Tasking Test on Asus S96J

Specs:

Core Duo T2400 1.83Ghz
1gb DDR2 667mhz
80gb 5,400rpm HDD
X1600 256mb

Power4Gear Setting:
Super Performance



Applications Open:

Anti-Virus Scanning
Firefox
AOL Instant Messenger
Itunes
Lime wire
Asus DVD Playing DVD
Windows Explorer Open
Quick Time Player
Windows Media Player
Internet Explorer
Open Office Writer
Audacity
Windows Movie Maker
Ad-Aware Scanning
Google Sketch-Up
Windows Task Manager


RAM Free: 348mb

CPU Usage: Between 50-80%

Everything is still nice and snappy, although a tiny bit of lag every several seconds, which is minimal and not bothersome. This is very good considering I would never have these many apps open to begin with.

 

Anyone know if 40 or so processes are dual core aware Some of those buggers are big enough to be classed as an application, fcol.